Archive for the ‘Retro Arcade Gaming’ category

UPDATED – Had to fix an error regarding where the event is taking place.

If you live in or near the Portland area then heads up, a retro gaming expo which will include some excellent retro arcade gaming will be getting some love on September 19th-20th. Pre- and post-party events will be taking place at Ground Kontrol Arcade in Portland with the main event taking place at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, there will be a lot of arcade love to go around, from classic games set on free play to a raffle prize of a full-size Konami Multicade machine. The admission is quite inexpensive and if you are looking for more details, check out the press release after the break.

Dates for California Extreme have been confirmed for 2009. The 13th annual celebration of pinball, videogames and other games found in arcades of the past, is to be held on the 11th & 12th July at the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara, California.

Organisers are always interested in hearing from anyone who would like to bring along their arcade or pinball machine, or from anyone interested in volunteering at the event. Those interested can contact info@caextreme.org for more information.

If Sega’s Border Break news has wet the appetite for some mech action, then your in for another treat as Sega are bringing the classic mech game; Virtual On to Xbox Live Arcade. Not any old VO, but the final release Oratorio Tangram which was the final release for the Naomi. The game is pencilled for an April release at 1200 points. Can’t wait, but one thing that does concern me is the more and more common 1200 point price tag for XBLA games. Are Microsoft gradually sneaking them up, me thinks?

While we eagerly await our ATEI coverage to be posted (it should be up very soon so stay tuned) I figured it might be nice to get in a video review before hand. I’ve been needing to do more of these but time is a precious thing as you know and I can’t seem to find enough of it lately. But here is one of my favorite games, Asteroids Deluxe, in all it’s vector glory. While I didn’t have a very good game here, I think that it’s always cool to see a vector monitor in action. Surprisingly, AD has been a popular game at my place, even kids who are only dazzled by today’s modern graphics constantly play this because “it looks so cool”. Too bad I don’t have a full color vector game to show them what that looks like but one day I’ll get my hands on a Major Havoc and that will change.

Way back in the early 80’s, at the height of the arcade craze, some companies produced some portable or table-top games based on popular arcade titles. The screens used weren’t anything close to what we have today but they also were not bad for the time. I have a Galaxian table-top game and it’s actually playable.

Now someone in Japan has brought the idea back with similar units although they have also added the feature of it being a piggy bank as well. You can get either Tetris or Breakout for about $40 each (which doesn’t include shipping from Japan) and from the video below it looks like they play close to the originals, although I’d prefer for Breakout to have a proper paddle controller.